Hercule Poirot's Casebook

Popular feeling is very often sentimental, muddle-headed, and eminently unsound, but it cannot be disregarded for all that.'

'How well you express it! That is exactly the curse of a politician's life He has to bow to the country's feeling, however dangerous and foolhardy he knows it to be.'

‘That was your dilemma, I think. There were rumours that you had concluded an agreement with the country in question. This country and the newspapers were up in arms about it. Fortunately the Prime Minister was able categorically to deny the story, and you repudiated it, though still making no secret of the way your sympathies lay.’

'All this is quite tree, M. Poirot, but why rake up past history?'

'Because I consider it possible that an enemy, disappointed in the way you surmounted that crisis, might endeavour to stage a further dilemma. You soon regained public confidence.

Those particular circumstances have passed away, you now, deservedly, one of the most popular figures in political life. You are spoken of freely as the next Prime Minister whe Mr Hunberly retires.'

'You think this is an attempt to discredit me? Nonsense!' 'Tout de mme, Lord Mayfield, it would not look well if i were known that the plans of Britain's new bomber had beet stolen during a weekend when a certain very charming lady ha¢

been your guest. Little hints in the newspapers as to you relationship with that lady would create a feeling of distrust ix you.'

'Such a thing could not really be taken seriously.'

'My dear Lord Mayfield, you know perfectly well it could!

It takes so little to undermine public confidence in a man.'

'Yes, that's true,' said Lord Mayfield. He looked suddenlj very worried. 'God! how desperately complicated this business is becoming. Do you really think - but it's impossible impossible.'

'You know of nobody who is - jealous of you?'

'Absurd!'

'At any rate you will admit that my questions about your personal relationships with the members of this house-part are not totally irrelevant.'

'Oh, perhaps - perhaps. You asked me about Julia Cartington.

There's really not very much to say. I've never taken to he very much, and I don't think she cares for me. She's one of these restless, nervy women, recklessly extravagant and mad about cards. She's old-fashioned enough, I think, to despise me as being a self-made man.'

Poirot said:

'I looked you up in Who's Who before I came down. You were the head of a famous engineering firm and you are yourself a first-class engineer.'

'There's certainly nothing I don't know about the practical side. I've worked my way up from the bottom.'

Lord Mayfield spoke rather grimly.

'Oh la la!' cried Poirot. 'I have been a fool - but a fool!'

The other stared at him.

'I beg your pardon, M. Poirot' . .

‘It is that a portion of the puzzle has become clear to me. Something I did not see before… But it all fits in. Yes—it fits in with beautiful precision.’

Lord Mayfield looked at him in somewhat astonished inquiry.

But with a slight smile Poirot shook his head.

‘No, no, not now. I must arrange my ideas a little more clearly.’

He rose.

‘Goodnight, Lord Mayfield. I think I know where those plans are.’

Lord Mayfield cried out:

'You know? Then let us gel hold of them at once!'

Poirot shook his head.

'No, no, that would not do. Precipitancy would be fatal. But leave it all to Hercule Poirot'

He went out of the room. :ord Mayfield raised his shoulders in contempt.

‘Man’s a mountebank,’ he muttered. Then, putting away his papers and turning out the lights, he, too, made his way up to bed.

CHAPTER 6

‘If there’s been a burglary, why the devil doesn’t old Mayfield send for the police?’ demanded Reggie Carrington.

He pushed his chair slightly back from the breakfast table.

He was the last down. His host, Mrs Macatta and Sir George had finished their breakfasts some time before. His mother and Mrs Vanderlyn were breakfasting in bed.

Sir George, repeating his statement on the lines agreed upon between Lord Mayfield and Hercule Poirot, had a feeling that he was not managing it as well as he might have done. 

'To send for a queer foreigner like this seems very odd tl me,' said Reggie. 'What has been taken, Father?'

'I don't know exactly, my boy.'

Reggie got up. He looked rather nervy and on edge this morlling.

'Nothing - important? No - papers or anything like that?'

'To tell you the truth, Reggie, I can't tell you exactly.'

'Very hush-hush, is it? I see.'

Reggie ran up the stairs, paused for a moment haft-way with a frown on his face, and then continued his ascent ami tapped on his mother's door. Her voice bade him enter.

Lady Julia was sitting up in bed, scribbling figures on the back of an envelope.

'Good morning, darling.' She looked up, then said sharply:

'Reggie, is anything the matter?'

'Nothing much, but it seems there was a burglary last night.'

'A burglary? What was taken?'

'Oh, I don't know. It's all very hush hush. There's some odd kind of private-inquiry agent downstairs asking everybody questions.'

'How extraordinary?

'It's rather unpleasant,' said Reggie slowly, 'staying in a house when that kind of thing happens.'

'What did happen exactly?'

'Don't know. It was some time after we all went to bed. Look out, Mother, you'll have that tray off.'

He rescued the breakfast-tray and carried it to a table by the window.

'Was money taken?'

'I tell you I don't know.'

Lady Julia said slowly:

'I suppose this inquiry man is asking everybody questions?'

'I suppose so.'

'Where they were last night? All that kind of thing?'

'Probably. Well, I can't tell him much. I went straight up to bed and was asleep in next to no time.'

Lady Julia did not answer.

'I say, Mother, I suppose you couldn't let me have a spot of cash. I'm absolutely broke.'

'No, I couldn't,' his mother replied decisively. 'I've got the most frightful overdraft myself. I don't know what your father will say when he hears about it.'

There was a tap at the door and Sir George entered.

'Ah, there you are, Reggie. Will you go down to the library?

M. Hercule Poirot wants to see you.'

Poirot had just concluded an interview with the redoubtable Mrs Macatta.

A few brief questions had elicited the information that Mm Macatta had gone up to bed just before eleven, and had heard or seen nothing helpful.

Poirot slid gently from the topic of the burglary to more personal matters. He himself had a great admiration for Lord Mayfield. As a member of the general public he felt that Lord Mayfield was a truly great man. Of course, Mrs Macatta, being in the know, would have a far better means of estimating that than himself.

'Lord Mayfield has brains,' allowed Mrs Macatta. 'And he has carved his career out entirely for himself. He owes nothing to hereditary influence. He has a certain lack of vision, perhaps.

In that I find all men sadly alike. They lack the breadth of a woman's imagination. Woman, M. Poirot, is going to be the great force in government in ten years' time.'

Poirot said that he was sure of it.

He slid to the topic of Mrs Vanderlyn. Was it true, as he had heard hinted, that she and Lord Mayfield were very dose friends?

'Not in the least. To tell you the truth I was very surprised to meet her here. Very surprised indeed.'